Beyond the subject DP versus the subject pronoun divide in agreement switches

Fernández Fuertes, Raquel; Liceras, Juana M.; Alba de la Fuente, Anahí

doi:10.1075/rllt.9.05fue

Part of

Romance Linguistics 2013: Selected papers from the 43rd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), New York, 17-19 April, 2013
Edited by Christina Tortora, Marcel den Dikken, Ignacio L. Montoya and Teresa O'Neill
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 9] 2016
► pp. 79–98

Beyond the subject DP versus the subject pronoun divide in agreement switches

Raquel Fernández Fuertes | Universidad de Valladolid

Juana M. Liceras | University of Ottawa and Universidad Nebrija

Anahí Alba de la Fuente | Université de Montréal

Previous code-switching literature argues that no switch takes place between a pronoun and a verb, while Determiner Phrases (DPs) do code-switch. This paper uses code-switching acceptability judgment data elicited from three groups of English–Spanish bilinguals (2L1 children, L2 English children and L2 English adults) to test: (i) van Gelderen & MacSwan’s (2008) PF disjunction theorem intended to account for the DP/pronoun divide; and (ii) an agreement version of the analogical criterion (Liceras et al. 2008) which is based on Pesetsky & Torrego’s (2001) double-feature valuation mechanism intended to account for the different status of third person versus first and second person pronominal subjects. We show that the PF disjunction theorem is clearly rooted in the mind of the bilingual and that the Spanish dominant bilinguals can ‘relax’ its requirements to value person agreement features as predicted by the double-feature valuation mechanism.

Published online: 3 February 2016

https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.9.05fue

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Ebert, Shane & Bryan Koronkiewicz

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Liceras, Juana M., Raquel Fernández Fuertes & Rachel Klassen

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2018. Can agreement be suppressed in second-language acquisition? Data from the Palenquero–Spanish interface. Second Language Research 34:3 ► pp. 309 ff.

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